


Forget Me Not

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Anal Sex, Feelings Realization, First Time, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Thor (2011), Rimming, Sibling Incest, Size Kink, Smut, considering the memory loss, oops I accidentally fucked my brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-04 18:05:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14025720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: Loki and Thor wake up in the woods with no memory of who they are or how they got there. All they can piece together is that it seems like they've been traveling together...and that they are absurdly attracted to each other...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darklittlestories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklittlestories/gifts).



> I took prompts on tumblr and arcano-cosplay gave me "memory loss (mind control?) Loki doesnt remember thor." I had wanted to do a double amnesia thing anyway, so it seemed like a sign!

Loki wakes up.

His eyes are gritty and his mouth tastes...disgusting...and there’s a headache lurking in his temples that he just _knows_ will roar to throbbing life the second he moves his head. He lifts his arm to shield his eyes from the midmorning light and his elbow knocks into an empty wineskin lying sadly deflated next to him. Ah. So. There’s the source of all the woe. Maybe? He shouldn’t feel this obliterated after a single skin of wine. Maybe there are more empties around somewhere.

And then he realizes that his sleeve is...damp? But it doesn’t smell like wine. And there is birdsong. And ok, this isn’t a bed, this is the grass. And there’s a rock digging into his ass. And the dampness is dew. 

Which is all very interesting, in a vaguely distant sort of way, because that headache is really starting in now and it feels like Nidhogg is gnawing at his brainstem.

Fucking hell.

Loki drags himself upright and contemplates vaporizing every single gods-bedamned bird that is currently assaulting his ears. With a huge force of effort he makes himself look around. Ok, he’s in a clearing in the forest. Trees, idiot birds, rocks...a long-dead campfire...two horses tied up with their saddles still on?...a Loki-shaped indentation in the dew-covered grass...and a large—no, HUGE—blond man staggering to his feet groaning.

It all slots into place.

“You drugged me!” Loki accuses shrilly. “Kidnapper! Rapist! Marauder!”

The blond man grunts and tries to focus his eyes on Loki.

“Wha-” The man’s voice comes out as a croak and he coughs and tries again. “What?”

“Is it a ransom you want? Or did you just want to get me alone in the woods for some,” Loki squints his eyes and drops his voice lower, “nefarious purpose?”

The man looks at him and scoffs, then begins to spin in a slow circle looking around, running his hands through his lion’s mane of hair. He is really ridiculously huge. Thighs like tree trunks and shoulders like a table and biceps as large as melons, and Loki gulps a little, because honestly this man could probably snap Loki in half with his pinky, and it is not _nearly_ as unsettling a thought as it should be…

“I don’t even know who you are,” the man says. “Who _are_ you, anyway? Why are you here?”

“Why am I—why are _you_ here?” Loki is snapping to cover up his consternation, because he honestly doesn’t have any idea why he’s here. He doesn’t remember how he got here at all. He tries to think back on last night and comes up with...a curious blank.

“I don’t know,” the man says, completing his circle and coming to rest with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face. “I can’t remember.”

Loki’s headache is still trying to bash his brains out from the inside of his skull and he tries to assimilate this information into the picture he thought he had of the situation. “How can you not remember?” he says peevishly.

“Enlighten me, then.”

Loki makes a noise of disgust and rubs his temples.

“You don’t remember either,” the man says. “Do you have a name, at least?”

Loki debates not telling him, but apparently something has happened to the both of them and he may need to work with this walking array of muscles to figure out what. Hopefully there is a brain in that absurdly attractive head of his. Although even if there isn’t Loki somehow doesn’t think he’ll mind terribly much...

Loki sighs and answers. “...Loki.” Suddenly Loki isn’t even sure of that. That is his name, right? He thinks it’s his name. But he tries to recall anyone ever calling him by it and he comes up with nothing. It’s extraordinarily worrisome. “And yours?”

“Thor.”

Thor holds out his hand expectantly. Loki looks at him dubiously before taking it. Thor’s hand is big like the rest of him, and calloused, and warm, and strong (unsurprising) yet gentle (intriguing). Loki feels a jolt of familiarity as they touch, like this is possibly something that has happened before. 

“Do we know each other?” Loki asks. “I feel like I know you.”

Thor is looking at him strangely, and Loki feels a wayward little frisson go down the back of his neck. He suddenly wishes that Thor’s hand was _there_ , chasing that little shiver. He can practically feel it. The way it would rest curled around his nape just so, one of those giant thumbs caressing his cheek, hot and heavy and—

—what the hell is going on?

_Why can’t he remember anything?_

“Ahem,” Loki says, looking down to where Thor has apparently forgotten he has Loki’s hand still trapped.

“I’ll uh...I’ll go look through the packs,” Thor says quickly, moving off towards the horses. He looks as flustered as Loki feels, and Loki’s stomach does a thing. A pretty nice thing.

Were he and Thor lovers? Run off into the woods for some tryst gone terribly wrong? Maybe hit with a charm of forgetfulness while they slept by a jealous third party? (because honestly, look at Thor, who _wouldn’t_ be jealous of Loki) 

Loki lies back down in the grass, heedless of the dew. His head feels like a rotten pumpkin ready to split open.

But no, a jealous lover doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why leave them there afterwards? Unless maybe the jealous party is hiding in the bushes even now spying on them, waiting to see what happens...

Or maybe they had been hit with a spell by bandits so that they could be robbed? That would make more sense. Loki was dangerous himself, but his sorcery wasn’t readily apparent. Thor, on the other hand, was clearly a threat to anybody wishing to do him harm. If anybody was stupid enough to try and rob him, enchanting him first would be the only way to do it and live.

Yes, that seems the most likely.

But still. Why were Loki and Thor traveling together in the first place?

“Find anything interesting?” Loki calls out. He’s convinced that Thor will tell him they’ve been robbed of everything valuable they might have had...nothing left but empty wine skins and dirty underthings...but, actually, no wait...their horses are still there...and _saddled_ of all things...no one would rob them and leave the _horses_?

Dammit.

“Here,” Thor says, coming back over and dropping a pack next to Loki’s head. “I think this one is yours.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The giant ‘L’ embroidered on the side in bright green thread seemed a bit of a giveaway.”

Loki snorts. “Fair enough.” He sits up and begins digging through it. An extra pair of boots, a perplexing number of flasks and vials (some empty, some not), two daggers, a pile of clothes… “This one is yours,” Loki says, holding up a shirt.

“What? Why?”

“Well for one I think that three of me could fit inside it, and also I would never be caught dead wearing it. Look at this, sleeves like this haven’t been fashionable in a decade...really, Thor, I’m disappointed in you. All the hard work you must put in for arms like that, and you choose to cover them in _this_. Disgraceful.”

Thor is grinning a bit. “You like my arms?”

“Oh shut it.”

Thor shuts it for a moment, still smiling. Loki is vaguely embarrassed, but only vaguely. Thor really does have admirable arms. There’s no shame in pointing it out.

“Is this book mine or yours?” Thor says, pulling a red leather bound tome from a side pocket of his own pack. “I don’t even know what language this is.”

Loki glances over. “Drakkhar,” he says. “Not many people can read it.”

“But you can.”

“Naturally.”

Thor gives a long low whistle. “We are _loaded_.” He holds up a fat coinpurse.

“We?”

“Well it seems rather obvious that we’ve been traveling together, doesn’t it?”

“That still doesn’t mean we’re sharing money...oh.” Loki has just found his own coinpurse and it’s just as full as Thor’s. “We _are_ loaded.”

“And our clothing and saddles are very fine.”

“If ten years out of date, in your case.”

Thor sits back on his heels and drums his fingers on his thigh. “So, I’m pretty sure we’re in Alfheim. We’re traveling together. Possibly we have been for quite some time, as our packs look pretty worn and our things seem to have mingled. We’re rich. And neither of us can remember anything before we woke up this morning. But we both seem familiar to each other. And you think I have nice arms.” Thor is smirking now, and it shouldn’t be attractive, but it is, and Loki is annoyed and turned on simultaneously.

“That seems to sum it up.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“How could I possibly know what you’re thinking?”

“Maybe we’re—” and Thor _waggles his eyebrows_ , and Norns, if Loki doesn’t want to punch him in the teeth “—together.”

Loki can’t help it, he blushes. Thor is only saying what Loki’s already thought himself, but it’s different to hear it from Thor’s mouth. Thor’s pretty, pretty mouth.

Thor grins at Loki’s obvious flush. “You _are_ exactly my type,” Thor says teasingly. “That much I do remember.”

“Oh am I now?”

Thor is still grinning and Loki wants to argue with him on principle, but it’s hard to deny the tightening low in his belly at Thor’s words. Still, though, him being _Thor’s type_ doesn’t really do anything to help their predicament.

“And how does that explain any of this?” Loki continues. “Why we’re here in the middle of the forest? Why our memories are gone?”

Thor shrugs. “It doesn’t. It might be a piece of the puzzle though.”

It might be. If Loki’s honest with himself, he really hopes it is. Because he is looking over at Thor now, and the sight of him studying Loki with such... _warmth_...leaves Loki’s mouth dry and his pulse quickening. And then Thor is reaching out and his hand is on Loki’s neck. It’s just the way Loki had imagined it before, and it’s just as hot and heavy as Loki thought it would be, and it fits there so perfectly, and it feels so right. Like safety and—

—Loki is gazing helplessly into Thor’s eyes. He doesn’t know what the expression on his own face must look like, because he doesn’t even know what he’s feeling. And Thor is gazing back, his own expression full of so many emotions that Loki can’t count them all, but he sees tenderness in it, and confusion, and hope, and something darker and deeper that shivers into the very core of him.

“This feels right, doesn’t it?” Thor asks softly. And oh, Loki shudders with a full body chill when Thor strokes his cheek with that thumb, and his eyes fall shut. He nods mutely.

It does. It really, really does.

*

Staying in the forest doesn’t seem like it will yield any further clues about their predicament, so they make for the main road and hope to come across an inn. One of the flasks of liquid in Loki’s pack is, thankfully, a pain draught; he is blessedly headache-free by the time they find their way out of the woods, and a good thing too because he’s not had such a pleasant afternoon in his life, he’s sure of it, and it would have been a shame to mar it with something as pedestrian as a headache.

They ride side-by-side, as close as their horses will allow. Loki’s face hurts from smiling so much. They may not have any idea who they are or where they come from, but his and Thor’s camaraderie comes so easy that they must have known each other well. Thor is bitingly funny and surprisingly insightful, and takes insults as well as he gives them, and there is hardly a moment when they are not laughing at each other’s jokes. Despite the strangeness of their situation, Loki feels light and free. Effervescent, almost. A little spot of something _good_ fizzing cheerfully under his breast bone. Thor makes him feel happy in a way that feels new and terribly exciting.

And _oh_ , the looks passing between them.

Loki can’t help but size up Thor’s magnificent arms as they ride, the way his massive thighs span his palfrey’s back. Can’t help but stare at his profile—how the man manages to be both pretty and handsome at the same time is, quite frankly, unfair, and Loki feels like he needs to have words with _someone_ about this injustice—and the way the sunlight highlights both his hair and his eyes is offensively attractive. Can’t help but bask in that radiant smile.

Can’t help but look so frequently and so long that he is caught out, and more than once.

Loki might feel exposed except for the fact that Thor seems to be afflicted with a similar malady. 

Thor’s gazes are as heavy as his hand was and Loki feels them just as acutely. There is a hunger there that Thor does not even try to hide and it stirs the hunger in Loki’s own belly. He feels it waking inside him, like a sleeping panther beginning to stretch and flex its claws. Surely they must be more than simply traveling companions? Surely this mutual want could not have sprung fully formed from nowhere?—the strength of it is nearly palpable.

Their shadows are long and their spirits are high when they come to the crest of a hill. It’s a straight shot down from where they are to the bottom, and nestled there at the juncture of three roads is a welcoming looking inn.

“Race you to the bottom?” Thor says, a devilish smile on his face. 

Loki doesn’t even bother to reply before he’s spurring his horse down the hill as fast as it can gallop. Thor is close behind, whooping outrageously, and Loki can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of his own throat.

They should perhaps be more serious. They are, after all, in a situation that should by all accounts be grave. But Loki is not feeling grave as they skid to a halt at the stables—”I’ve won!” he crows triumphantly—nor as Thor leaps off his horse with merry fire in his eyes, nor as Thor’s hands close around Loki’s waist to lift him down from his own saddle.

“Oh!” Loki says, a high-pitched squeak, as Thor effortlessly picks him up and sets him down lightly on the ground. His hands grasp at Thor’s biceps for purchase, and Thor is grinning down at him, and Loki is grinning back, and he can feel the color high in his cheeks, and Thor starts to dip his head down, and Loki’s eyes flutter closed, and—

“My lords?” It’s a stablehand, surely the stablehand with the worst rotten timing in all the Nine Realms. Loki nearly hexes him into a frog, but instead he hides his blush in Thor’s shoulder and wills his pulse down. “Can I take your horses?” the boy says.

“Thanks,” Thor says, flipping the boy a coin. His other hand doesn’t stray from Loki’s waist. Loki can feel each individual finger on him like a tiny electrical contact. A tingling shiver takes hold of his belly. “One room?” Thor murmurs for Loki’s ears only, and Loki nods against his shoulder. Thor’s hand tightens on his waist and Loki nearly shivers out of his skin.

Loki doesn’t even know how they arrange the room and make it upstairs. He supposes they should be staying in the common room for awhile gathering intel or something equally sensical, but right now Thor’s hand is still on him and his eyes are full of naked desire, and pure unadulterated _need_ (to kiss and bite and lick and touch and—) is overriding any of Loki’s brain’s higher functions.

The door is barely shut before Thor is crowding him up against it.

“Valhalla and the Nine,” Thor groans. His mouth is on Loki’s neck and his hands are on Loki’s shirt sash and Loki throws his head back with a whine and wraps one of his legs around Thor’s hip. Thor’s voice is a rumble against his throat. “All day I wanted to throw you off that horse and have you, right there in the dirt. I don’t know how I resisted. Look at you, _Norns_.” He’s pushed Loki’s tunic wide open and his mouth is making a trail down to Loki’s collarbone now, and his breast, and back up to the hollow at the base of his neck. 

Loki doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He wants them everywhere, simultaneously. He’s been staring all day and he wants his hands to learn everything that his eyes have already mapped out, wants to feel Thor’s skin warm and alive under his touch, feel the blood rushing through his veins.

Thor pulls back to look at him, and Loki meets his gaze, panting and wide-eyed. 

“I may not remember a lot of things, but I know I’ve never felt this way about anyone else, I’m sure of it,” Thor says. His words nestle into Loki’s chest behind his breastbone, warm and sweetly aching, for Loki feels the same way, and he wishes he remembered anything about who they were. Ever forgetting Thor feels like the worst kind of crime.

“Me too,” Loki whispers. It’s all he can manage and it seems scant in the face of his feelings, but it’s better than nothing.

Right now more than anything he wants Thor’s mouth on his own, so he grabs two handfuls of golden hair and pulls Thor’s face in for a kiss. It’s amazing. Not gentle, not hard, but passionate and hungry and just wet enough to edge into filthy. Loki sucks at Thor’s lower lip and slides his arm around Thor’s neck, sinking into it, surrendering himself, really, and Thor runs his hand up the thigh Loki still has wrapped around him and palms his ass, then yanks their hips together until their cocks are grinding into each other. Loki can’t help but moan into Thor’s mouth.

Sweet, merciful gods. Loki doesn’t know what he’s done right to deserve this, as he doesn’t know much of what he’s done at all, but it must have been something amazingly good. It isn’t every day that the most charming, handsome, and stunningly well-muscled man in existence pushes you against a door and ravishes you.

“I have oil,” Loki gasps, tearing his lips away. “In my pack. I saw it. Blue vial.”

Loki shucks off the rest of his clothes while Thor rummages through his bag, kicking his boots off and flinging articles of clothing willy-nilly. He has a second to take the room in—a large bed, an empty hearth, a small table and two chairs, one thick-paned window—and then Thor is back.

“These...fucking...buckles,” Thor is grumbling, trying unsuccessfully to wrestle his armor off. Loki flicks his fingers and all the fastenings spring open at once. “Ingenius,” Thor beams, capturing Loki’s mouth again. “Absolutely brilliant.” And then he’s pulling everything off and Loki finally gets an eyeful of that chest he’s been fantasizing about since he woke up this morning.

It’s even better than he imagined, if that’s possible. Well, really, Thor _looks_ pretty much just like Loki imagined, but when confronted with him in the literal flesh, it’s more than just looks. It’s vast tracts of warm skin, and muscles that shift delightfully under Loki’s roaming hands, and nipples that pebble in his exploring mouth, and goosebumpy shivers as Loki fits his fingers into the notches between Thor’s ribs. And a heartbeat, strong and alive and speeding up whenever Loki touches, showing him more than words ever could that he is affecting Thor as much as Thor is affecting him.

And, Norns, is Loki affected. He’s half in love and so hard it aches and he thinks if Thor doesn’t fuck him immediately he might just die on the spot.

Thor seems to be of the same mind. He puts his hands under Loki’s ass and lifts him clear up into the air, and _oh_ , those arms aren’t just for show are they? Loki wraps his legs around Thor’s waist and devours Thor’s mouth and tries not to whimper too pathetically—it’s hard though, because _fuck_ , being picked up like a doll is really something else. 

And then Thor is tossing him onto the bed and he looks like he wants to eat Loki for dinner and Loki is going to...well, he was going to say _let him_ , but actually _beg for it_ would probably be more accurate. 

Thor looms over him, hair half up but falling out to frame his face, and Loki has a sudden flash of...something. Some kind of memory. Thor, leaning over him like this, backlit by the sun, and it feels...it’s almost...ugh, it was right there, but now it’s gone. Loki’s chest feels weird. Everything is so intense and confusing.

But his body at least seems to feel like one thing is fairly uncomplicated and it is insistent and unchanging in its demands. It needs Thor on top of him, now, and Thor’s hands on him, also now, and Thor’s cock inside him, immediately if not sooner.

“Get _over_ here,” Loki says.

Thor does.

They kiss again, deep and desperate, and then Thor is turning Loki over, hiking his hips up and stuffing pillows underneath them and Loki barely has time to open his mouth to speak before Thor’s tongue is diving between his cheeks.

“ _Oh_ ,” Loki says emphatically. This is unexpected. He’d half thought Thor would just shove right in (it’s what Loki might have done were their positions reversed), or maybe give him a couple of fingers first. But this—this is unexpected and _exquisite_. “That’s...that’s…”

“Good?” Thor murmurs. He’s spreading Loki open with his thumbs, licking and nibbling and sucking and...Norns, dipping inside and…

“Mmmm,” Loki agrees. He’s fisting the sheets and _wriggling_ and it’s all extremely undignified but he doesn’t really care at this point. Thor pulls away and Loki reaches back with his own hands—spreading himself, _presenting_ himself, by all the gods—and he hears Thor groan. It’s ragged and broken sounding and it gives Loki fierce joy that he’s reduced Thor to making sounds like that.

“Fuck me, do it,” Loki pants. “I’m ready, I can’t wait anymore, _please_ , do it.”

“Fuck,” Thor says.

Loki hears the cap of the oil come off, and then there’s a pressure at his entrance. He wiggles his ass, inviting Thor in, and Thor pushes. The deep shuddering moan that comes out of Thor’s throat is music that Loki wants to hear for the rest of his life if at all possible.

Loki is moaning too, and his mouth has fallen open, and he’s still holding his own ass cheeks, and Thor is stretching and burning and sliding in, and Loki’s face screws up—the pain will give way to pleasure, he knows it, and he makes himself breathe—and Thor is still inching in, he’s so huge, how can there possibly be any more cock left to take—and just when Loki thinks that Thor’s bottomed out, he shoves in the last inch and they both cry out.

“Just...just a minute,” Loki says shakily. He’s no stranger to being in this particular position, but Thor is simply a _lot_. A lot of man, a lot of cock, a lot of confusing feelings.

Thor is dropping kisses onto the back of Loki’s neck and making him shiver. His huge hands knead at Loki’s hips. He gently covers Loki’s hands with his own and moves them up by Loki’s head, interlacing their fingers so that they’re holding hands. It’s...tender. How can it be so tender? They don’t even know each other. Well, they probably do, but not right now they don’t, and—

“Now?” Thor asks, shifting minutely inside of Loki.

“Ok,” Loki breathes.

Thor slides out slowly, and back in, and again, and again, and Loki’s breath stutters out of his lungs. Fuck. Thor’s cock is the only thing that exists in the world right now, there’s no room for anything else, Loki is filled up and filled out and surely this is what he was made for...surely this is his body’s purpose…

“Fuck,” Thor grunts, and he pulls all the way out and then pushes back in swiftly, all at once. It wrings a strangled moan out of Loki. His fingers tighten on Thor’s and he arches his back, and Thor really starts giving it to him.

Loki can’t think, can’t even begin to formulate thoughts. The only anchor he can grab onto is the feeling of Thor ramming home with each thrust, splitting him open, eclipsing everything else in the world. And all he can do is make helpless high little noises every time Thor drives into him, and ye mothering gods, Thor is hitting just the right spot now, _just_ —the _right_ — _spot_ , and Loki thinks he might be sobbing, and his mouth is definitely hanging open, and Thor just needs to keep going...keep...oh gods...Loki is so close...he just…

“ _Ahhhh_ ,” Loki cries out as Thor wraps both arms around him and rolls them onto their sides. One of his huge hands goes to Loki’s throat, and he’s still driving up into Loki, and the other hand closes around Loki’s poor neglected cock and fists him, once, twice, three times— and Loki is coming, all up over his chest, and he’s shaking and clenching and out of his mind with waves of bliss. Thor bites at Loki’s neck and buries himself inside one more time, and he’s gone too, clutching Loki to his chest and shuddering.

“Thor, Thor, Thor,” Loki hears himself murmuring and he presses his back against Thor’s front. Thor’s hand is still on his throat and the other on his chest, smearing them both with Loki’s spend, and Thor is still nuzzled in behind his ear, and Loki has just had the best orgasm that anyone has ever had, ever. For a whole shining moment everything is beautiful and happy and perfect.

And then Loki’s brain finally drifts back into his body from wherever it had been floating.

And he remembers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I thought this was going to only be two chapters, but Loki had other ideas.

Loki goes stiff in Thor’s arms.

He _remembers_ , and he is in _his brother’s arms_ with _his brother’s cock still inside of him_.

He’s frozen, horrified, his breath completely paralyzed. Thor tenses up behind him—and then exhales a tiny ‘fuck’.

“Loki—”

“You knew!” Loki shrieks. He leaps from the bed, scrambling in his haste, stumbling, nearly falling. His hand lands on something and he picks it up and throws it at Thor’s head—a boot. “How long did you know!” He’s throwing anything he can reach now, candles, clothing, another boot, and he backs into a chair and picks that up too and holds it up in the air like he intends to throw it as well. “ _How long_.”

Thor has been ducking and swatting things out of the air, and now he’s holding his hand out in a placating gesture.

_It still has Loki’s come on it._

“I didn’t!” Thor says. “Not until just now, not until...it...we...I _didn’t_!”

“You took advantage of me!” Loki cries, and he starts swinging at Thor with the chair.

“Stop it! OW! Stop—brother—gods dammit—YOU WERE BEGGING FOR IT A MINUTE AGO.”

Loki pauses in his attack, shocked, and a high-pitched noise of wordless affront escapes him. How _dare_ he?! Thor is glaring at him, chest heaving, defying Loki to say something else, and Loki can feel himself burning with shame and rage. He’s not sure that he’s not actually on fire.

That Thor’s words aren’t even untrue just makes it worse, not better.

Thor opens his mouth to say something else, but Loki throws the chair to the ground with a clatter.

“SHUT UP,” Loki says, and whirls around so that he doesn’t have to look at Thor’s stupid face. How the fuck did this happen? How the _ever-loving fuck_ —

Suddenly he remembers waking up next to an empty wine skin.

“Which wine did you give us?” Loki demands, and he realizes he’s pacing, and pulling at his own hair compulsively, and he makes himself stop. “Last night, when we stopped to make camp, and I asked you to get some from my pack?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you give us the one in the red skin like I asked you to?” Loki says shakily. He feels like he might be sick. “ _Thor_. The _red_ skin?” Somehow he’s in Thor’s face now and he’s got Thor’s shoulders clamped in his hands and he shakes them with each word that he spits out from between his clenched teeth. “Did. You. Give. Us. The. Wrong. Fucking. Wine.”

Thor looks stricken. “There was red on it—”

Loki makes that affronted noise again, this time mixed with disgust, and smacks Thor on the chest. “You idiot! Red ON it? RED _ON_ IT?!” 

Thor catches his hands and holds his wrists while Loki struggles to keep hitting him.

“Why are you going on about wine?” Thor asks darkly. “Brother, what have you done?”

“What have I—what have _I_ done? You put your COCK in my ASS and you ask what I’VE done? _You_ gave us the wine in the BLUE skin, the one that only has a tiny stripe of red around the little tippy top of it. The BLUE skin, Thor. The one that contains wine that I ENCHANTED with a MEMORY LOSS CHARM.”

“Why in all the hells would you be carrying around something like that!” Thor demands, voice full of incredulous anger.

Loki finally rips himself out of Thor’s grasp and starts pacing again. “You know how much I’ve been winning at dice!” he says, gesticulating wildly. “We find a new tavern, I gamble, I cheat, I win, I slip them some wine, and we go on our merry little way! How do you THINK I’ve been doing it!”

“I don’t know, I thought you were—charming people! Not literally! You know, with—”

Loki scoffs. “With what, my winning personality?”

Thor pauses just too long for his next comment to sound remotely innocent. “...something like that.”

Loki lets out a garbled wordless yell and throws a book at Thor’s head. Thor ducks it easily and they stand there glaring at each other, furious.

Suddenly Loki realizes he’s still naked, and he snatches the coverlet off the bed and wraps himself up in it, still glaring. His hands are shaking. He turns away from Thor and leans against the fireplace, closing his eyes. He tries to focus on breathing. In and out, in and out. Underneath his shell of anger he feels dangerously lost, and somewhere in that ocean of confusion there hides a diamond-edged truth that he doesn’t want to cut himself on.

“I can’t believe I—I can’t believe you—we—” Loki’s voice cracks.

The anger is gone from Thor’s voice. “Brother, we were out of our minds...it’s no one’s fault…”

“Don’t call me that right now,” Loki says dully. And again, as though it will make it true, “It’s your fault for mixing up the wine.”

“And yours for having it in the first place and not telling me,” Thor says, but there’s no rancor, just honesty. He’s quiet for a moment. “Why did it affect us so strongly? If we’d been leaving a trail of amnesiacs in our wake I’m sure somebody would have noticed…”

“I would sneak a few drops into my gambling partners’ cups, no more. Just enough to make them forget being swindled, and to forget our faces.”

“But we remember what happened, we didn’t forget permanently—”

“I formulated it for Light Elves, not Aesir, I have no idea. And we—”

“—we drank the whole skin.”

Loki barks out a laugh that’s more a sob than anything else and knocks his head lightly against the wall.

“Yes, we drank the whole skin.”

And here at last is the thought that Loki has been trying to avoid confronting, the one that will make him bleed.

They drank the whole skin, and for one afternoon they had enjoyed each other’s company complication-free, and _this_ was what had come to the surface. The wine hadn’t given them anything, it had only taken away existing barriers, cleared out their whole fraught history so they could start anew, and this was what had remained between them—lust, yes, but also joy in each other’s company and happiness and intimacy. And Thor’s words, still tucked inside Loki’s ribs—’ _I know I’ve never felt this way about anyone else, I’m sure of it._ ’

It is both of their faults and it is neither of their faults and Loki knows that he will never get over this in his entire life, not even should he live to see ten thousand.

He is cut to shreds and he feels his heart’s blood pumping out all over the floor.

“I’m sorry.” Thor’s hand touches his shoulder, and Loki pulls away and draws the blanket tighter around him. Loki is sorry too. Sorrier than he’s ever been in his life, which is actually a relatively high yardstick to measure against. He heaves out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“We should go home,” Loki says.

*

Once they’re back at the palace, avoiding Thor is relatively easy, and made easier by the fact that Loki is fairly certain that Thor doesn’t really want to see him either. The few times they accidentally spy each other in the hallways have both of them turning on their heels and scurrying back the way they came.

Well, Loki scurries at any rate. He’s not sure that Thor knows how to.

Loki throws himself into anything he can think of to take his mind off of their disastrous incident. He brews the finickiest of potions that require the utmost in concentration and precision. When the potions fail he writes a paper on the role of star alignment in potion brewing (surely that was the limiting factor), and then for good measure he completes an unfinished paper on the properties of bilgesnipe blood in runecasting and another on the magical breeding of more potent wormwood. 

It’s very absorbing work.

Also, unfortunately, deadly boring.

He’s repotting plants and imagining Thor’s lips on his neck. Cross-referencing star charts and remembering blushing into Thor’s shoulder after being lifted down from his horse. Studying blood cells under a glass, which, ok, are kind of interesting because who knew they could be shaped like that? but what is much more interesting, is the way a week ago Loki’s entire body had gone alight under Thor’s hands, every cell electrified, and _that_ would _really_ have been an impressive phenomenon to study under a microscope.

Mostly though, what Loki can’t seem to escape is how miserable he is right now, and how happy he had been for that one improbable day.

And he craves it. The way things might have been in another life. The way that he now knows they could be in this life. He wants it again so badly it aches.

He loathes himself for it.

His own brother? Really? The happiest he’s ever been and it was just from spending time with his _brother_? It’s pathetic.

_Well not just from spending time..._

He’s still a little horrified, and infuriated, and embarrassed, but mostly he just wants _more of it_.

And despite that, Loki doesn’t want to see Thor right now, or gods forbid talk to him. What would they even say? How could Loki look Thor in the eye when all he can think about is how he held himself open and pleaded for Thor to fuck him? And how Thor is probably imagining exactly the same thing? It’s utterly mortifying.

Not to mention the thought that maybe to Thor it might have been nothing more than spur-of-the-moment misplaced lust, whereas it’s exceedingly clear that to Loki it was more than that. It makes Loki’s stomach hurt to think about it. It’s not exactly like Thor has been pounding his door down the last couple of weeks telling Loki that he misses him.

Obviously academics aren’t working to distract him, so Loki tries to throw himself into physical exertion instead. Perhaps he can simply exhaust himself. He begins visiting the training grounds. He spars with anyone who’s willing to raise hands against a prince and leaves them all gasping in the dirt. When he can’t find a partner he trains on his own, until his muscles are straining and the sweat is pouring down his body and his mind is a blessed blank. He collapses in bed at night utterly spent, unbothered by pesky thoughts of stupidly attractive, stupidly amazing, stupidly _stupid_ Thor.

It works for a little bit.

But even as careful as Loki is to try to avoid any time Thor might be training, one day he sees him. Thor is leaving as Loki is arriving. He’s walking off the field, shirtless and gleaming with sweat and so beautiful Loki could just—lick him—or climb him like a tree—and he’s laughing at some jest from Fandral, and the sight of it is simply too much for Loki’s poor abused emotions to take.

Loki removes himself to his chambers with record speed. He takes himself in his hand and closes his eyes and for the first time he purposefully comes to thoughts of his brother.

Afterwards, he looks down at the mess he’s made of himself in a sort of resigned despair. He’s far beyond shame at this point. What good would it be to rue this transgression when he’s already committed much worse? But he can’t help but agonize over what Thor would think if he knew.

Would he be disgusted? Full of pity? Feel sorry, so sorry, for his poor pathetic little brother, who can’t just suck it up and move on? Thor had looked pretty carefree walking off the field there; he’s probably already moved past this weeks ago, not wallowed around moping like some lovesick child. Thor’s emotions generally swing between ‘cheerfulness’ and ‘righteous anger’ and sometimes ‘stoic silence’—’moping’ is not in his emotional vocabulary. Loki has no illusions that this emotional crisis he’s experiencing is anything other than one-sided; how could it be? Falling in love with your brother is not a normal thing to do. 

So, no, Loki can’t expect Thor to be languishing and pining the way that Loki himself is, and, really, Loki should just thank his lucky stars that Thor hasn’t sought him out to rub his nose in the whole thing. At least this way Loki can just deal with his own wretched tangle of emotions in private.

Yes, Thor just ignoring the entire debacle is the absolutely best outcome Loki could have hoped for.

If only Loki could do the same thing.

*

Another week goes by and day-to-day Thor Avoidance is going pretty well (day-to-day Thor Wank Sessions are also going pretty well). Obviously it isn't tenable as a long term strategy, but Loki is focused on short term survival at the moment. The Norns, however, are not content with his mere survival, and they are now actively sabotaging him once again; Loki receives a formal invitation to a state dinner that he and Thor both have to attend. There's really no way out of it without causing a diplomatic incident. He and Thor will have to stand next to each other and possibly sit next to each other and Loki will have to just somehow _not_ hyperventilate himself into an oxygen starvation coma.

In the meantime he has a new distraction—creating something to wear to the event.

It has to be something really good. New. Daring. He's well known for being a fashion setter. If he shows up in something uninspired, people will talk. He has an image to maintain.

And he’s going to look _fabulous_. Because something needs to snap him out of this funk.

But clothes-making turns out to be a poor distraction indeed, even worse than the boredom of academics or accidentally catching a glimpse of shirtless sweaty Thor, because sewing is monotonous and monotony breeds daydreaming and daydreaming breeds ridiculous romantic fantasies. Loki would slap himself if he thought it would do any good. It’s absolutely appalling how he literally can’t think about anything else. It’s embarrassing and pathetic.

Imagining the Thor from That Day and how he would look at Loki, how his eyes would devour him from head to toe, the sweetly filthy things he would say and how he would rip Loki's pretty new clothes in his frantic need to tear them off and fuck him senseless…

Loki stabs the needle viciously into the fabric and nearly ruins the beading.

Seeing Thor is going to be good. It will be a _good_ thing. Because this silly fantasy that Loki has built up in his mind is just that, a fantasy, and it is growing more and more fanciful by the day with nothing to temper it. Loki will see Thor, and Thor will no doubt say or do something completely enraging and he will finally sour Loki’s affection all on his own. Why should Loki have to do all the hard work of getting over things? He’ll simply let Thor kill these stupid feelings with his own buffoonery.

Continuing to pine is nothing more than cowardice, and he loathes himself too much already to add yet another dismal personal failing to his ever-growing list.

He holds up the breeches he’s been working on. They’re made of a fabric he’s been designing, black but with a shimmering depth that nearly tricks the eye into thinking it’s translucent. They’re also scandalously tight and Loki might need to magic himself into them. A similarly tight tunic that ends just shy of the breeches will show off the beading at the waist; the tunic is deep green, low necked with a yoke of emeralds, and has dramatic tails that will flare out behind him when he walks.

This, thankfully, he is satisfied with. At least he can look stylish at this funeral.

*

These state events always start in the throne room. Odin greets the visiting dignitaries from his high seat, Frigga on one side, Thor and Loki on the other, and then there’s a receiving line of handshakes and shoulder pats and false smiles and pointed pleasantries. The doors to the great hall are thrown open afterwards and the feasting begins. The royal family is expected at the high table at least until everyone is adequately soused enough that the dancing begins. 

Loki’s been attending these since he was a very small child and he knows the routine well. He knows how to greet and flatter and chuckle politely and keep his ears open. Sometimes it’s even entertaining, trying to pick up the threads running through the room of who is sleeping with who and who is betraying who and so forth.

Tonight though, he has only one goal.

Well, maybe two. The first is to make a good entrance, after all.

He smooths his hand over his hair and leaves a trail of tiny seidr sparkles that hover winking among the strands, then takes a deep breath and strides into the throne room like he owns it, tunic tails billowing. He can hear the appreciative murmurs following him.

He has eyes for only one person though, and when he sees him his steps nearly falter.

Thor is already standing up on the dais. And he looks—well, he looks like Loki wants to throw himself whimpering against his chest and beg to be carried back to his room is how he looks. His hair is a luscious fall of loose golden waves tonight, peppered with tiny braids woven with silver. He’s wearing a burgundy doublet with a wide black sash at his waist, highnecked but with a short plunging V at the front, and so close-fitting that it’s a wonder he can move at all. And gods have mercy but he’s listened to Loki’s advice about the sleeves; they’re as close-fitting at the rest of it and the fabric strains over his shoulders and biceps.

Loki could eat him. Loki _wants_ to eat him. He wants to be eaten _by_ him.

No. He gives himself a mental shake. He wants Thor to be an asshole tonight.

_‘I’ve never felt this way about anyone else, I’m sure of it.’_

Ugh, no he doesn’t.

Fuck.

Loki hasn’t been able to tear his gaze away, and so he doesn’t miss Thor’s sharp intake of breath when he notices Loki. Loki forces himself not to break into a helpless grin. Raises his chin in challenge instead as he steps up on the dais. Thor’s eyes never stray and the look on his face is—Loki doesn’t know what it is. It’s disturbingly like the expression on his face on That Day when Thor had first clasped Loki’s neck and they’d nearly swooned into each other. Loki hopes his own face looks cooly neutral; he practiced it in the mirror enough times. His stomach is doing backflips though.

They haven’t spoken since they got back. Loki doesn’t want to be the first to break the silence. Doesn’t want any inkling of his desperation to show.

They stand side by side and observe the gathering crowd.

Thor is fidgeting.

Loki is curling his toes inside his boots where no one can see.

“You look well,” Thor says finally after an incredibly long silence. “I like your hair.”

“Thank you,” Loki says tersely.

Thor sighs.

“Brother, I’m s-”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Loki hisses. “Just don’t.”

Thor sighs again.

“As you wish. I’m glad to see you again though.”

Loki’s nostrils flare. “Nothing was preventing you from seeing me before.”

Thor sighs for a third time.

“If you keep sighing like that you may never see me again at all,” Loki says coldly. He keeps staring straight ahead. If he looks at Thor he’ll probably crack and do something foolish like smile at him. Thor isn’t even arguing back. What is the matter with him?

They both straighten as the trumpets blast to announce the arrival of their father. Odin sweeps into the room with Frigga on his arm, and Loki and Thor both put on their prince faces.

This at least is familiar enough that Loki can fall back into old habits easily enough.

Odin makes his speech, and then Lord Dvalin of the Dwarves whose visit is the reason for this dinner, and then the receiving line begins and the brothers smile and laugh and shake hands like they have a hundred times before.

It’s almost like any other time, if Loki could just...stop imagining Thor’s bulk pounding him into the bed…

And now Thor is doing precisely the opposite of being an asshole, and he’s started murmuring snide asides into Loki’s ear about each of the pompous idiots that comes through the line. Loki ignores it at first—he’s angry, _angry_ gods dammit—but Thor knows exactly what makes Loki laugh and it’s getting harder and harder not to snicker. After a particularly pointed comment that makes Loki have to hide a laugh with a cough, he turns to glare at Thor and finds Thor smiling at him so hopefully that instead Loki can’t help but smile back.

This is awful.

And now it’s time for the feast and they have to sit next to each other at the table. And Loki has to watch Thor’s cheeks grow flush with wine, watch him growing merry and loose as the evening goes on, the torchlight catching on the strands of silver in his braids and highlighting them in fire. And Thor keeps _not_ being an asshole. He’s funny and charming and beautiful. Like nothing’s wrong. Like nothing has happened between them.

Loki himself is not merry or loose. He’s tense and stiff, and his innards are still quivering, and every smile that Thor manages wring from him feels like he’s betraying himself.

The only indication Loki has that Thor might be affected by That Day in the slightest is that Thor never insults him even in jest, and that he seems to be doing his best not to meet Loki’s eyes directly.

Thor is trying to make it up to him.

But how can such a thing ever be smoothed over so easily?

Loki should provoke him. He should. He knows it. He knows how to rile Thor up better than anyone else alive. But Thor is trying, and...Loki’s traitorous heart and traitorous cock are well and truly pleased by the attention. He also hates it, because it’s not enough, can never be enough.

Thor is doing nothing wrong, is doing nothing but showering him with brotherly love and affection, and Loki is choking.

“Excuse me,” Loki says the second the dessert course is cleared. “I’m afraid the food hasn’t quite agreed with me.”

He needs to get out of here. Go back to his room. Put his head under his pillow and scream until he passes out and wakes up in a different reality. This one is insufferable. Maybe he can just drink more of his own wretched wine until he forgets everything permanently or possibly even drowns.

Thor’s eyes are on his back as he flees. He can feel them.

 _Don’t follow me_ , he pleads silently.

Thor follows him.


	3. Chapter 3

“Loki, wait.”

Loki doesn’t even break stride, he just keeps walking down the hallway, green fabric flaring out behind him like a peacock tail. His reflection flashes in the corner of his eye in every window that he passes. His chest feels crushed in a vise.

“Wait!”

Thor’s footsteps are speeding up behind him now.

“Stop following me,” Loki grinds out.

“We need to talk.”

Loki keeps walking. Flash, flash, flash. 

“I have nothing to say.”

Thor is gaining on him. Loki can feel his presence at his back.

“Please.”

Thor’s hand is closing around his arm now, pulling him up short, pulling him around to face Thor.

“What is there to talk about,” Loki says flatly. “What can we _possibly_ talk about.” He can’t look at Thor’s face. His eyes flit to Thor’s chest, which isn’t much better, and his hands, definitely not better, and then finally skitter over Thor’s shoulder to focus on their reflection in the window across the hall. He can see Thor’s broad back and his own face over Thor’s shoulder, a pale circle. There’s a flaw in the glass and he looks wavy, distorted.

“I want...I just…” Thor’s hand tightens on Loki’s arm. “I want to fix it.”

Loki wrenches away and keeps walking.

“You can’t _fix_ it.”

“Brother, please—”

“There’s nothing to fix.”

Loki needs to escape. Maybe he can just hurl himself through one of the windows, burst out into the air in a shower of glass, turn into a bird, and fly away. Never come back.

Thor starts to speak again but Loki whirls back and slashes his arm through the air emphatically and cuts him off.

“You’ve been trying all night, and I appreciate it, I really do, but you need to leave now before this goes even more to shit. Just...go back to getting on with your life. You were doing so marvelously before.”

“I—”

“This is not a _thing_ you can fix, _I_ am not a thing you can fix.”

Thor looks like he’s about to cry and it makes Loki want to cry as well.

“I wish things could just go back to the way they were before,” Thor says, miserable, his hands flexing at his sides.

“They can’t,” Loki says bitterly. “We’ve made perfectly certain of that.”

He whirls again and practically runs down the hallway, his stride long and loping, and tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Fuck. If there was one thing he could say of himself in this whole disaster it was that at least he hasn’t cried, but apparently he is not even to be granted that one small boon.

Thor’s hand is on his arm again and Loki chokes out a sob as Thor pulls him around. The vise around his chest is crushing, asphyxiating. Thor has both hands on his shoulders now and Loki has his head down but Thor is stooping to try to catch his eyes. And his fucking hand goes to Loki’s neck, that ages old gesture that he’s been doing their whole lives, the one that Loki remembered even when he couldn’t remember anything else, and Loki is weak, he can’t help it; he leans into it.

“Because you hate me now?” Thor’s voice is strained, slightly unsteady. 

Loki shakes his head.

“Why, then?”

Loki can’t say anything. His tongue has gone to lead, caught between two impossibilities.

He’s still looking down, and he glances to the side and sees them in the window again through eyes watery with tears. Two figures, one broad, one slim. Golden hair and black, both sparkling with silver. Sun and moon and stars. Thor’s head bowed towards his. They look like a painting.

He turns his head back to Thor and raises his eyes and finally meets Thor’s gaze.

Loki’s face is an open book, he knows it. His desperate yearning is plain to see. The blue of Thor’s eyes is dizzying, and Loki brings his hands up to Thor’s chest to steady himself so that he doesn’t drown. He can feel his own lips part, but he doesn’t remember how to breathe. And now is when Thor will realize the truth, because Loki’s body is proclaiming it in every way that it can despite his silence, and Thor’s not an idiot, he never has been, and he’ll drop his hands and back away in disgust or pity or both, and Loki will be left alone to wallow in his own sad, lonely patheticness.

Except that Thor’s eyes go soft and his hand is drawing Loki closer. Closer. Their noses brush. Thor’s thumb is on his cheek, stroking. Loki doesn’t know what to do. His heart might pound right out of his chest, break through the vise around it, break itself into a million pieces. Thor’s breath is so warm against his face. It smells of spiced wine. Their noses brush again, and then their lips. Not a kiss. A question. Loki makes a noise that he refuses to call a whimper.

The sound of footsteps down the hallway has them leaping apart and then a page is scurrying past and what the fuck, what the fuck, _what the fuck_ —

“Come on,” Thor says and grabs Loki by the wrist.

He’s dragging him down the hallway, then right, left, and right again. Thor doesn’t relinquish his hold until they make it to Loki’s rooms and through the door and Loki slams it shut behind them while Thor continues inside. Loki still doesn’t know what’s going on, what any of this means, what is happening with his fucking _life_. He’s as lost as he was when he first woke up with no memories.

He can feel his brows draw up.

“Thor—” he starts.

It’s Thor’s turn to cut Loki off though. They’re in the sitting room and Thor is standing in the middle of it. He dwarfs it, makes Loki’s elegant chairs look like doll furniture. It’s more than just his mass, though, it’s his _self_ , his energy—expanding to fill the space, pushing everything around him back until he stands in his own bubble of radiant Thor-ness.

Or maybe he’s just Thor and Loki is just an idiot who’s so stupidly in love that even his inner hyperbole is hyperbolizing.

“I was going to ask you—” Thor starts, and then he stops, scrubs his hand over his face, and reorients himself. “I wasn’t ‘doing so marvelously’ before. I’ve been out of my mind these past few weeks. Tonight, I tried to—I wanted to see if we could still be what we were, and—”

“We can’t.” Loki’s voice is tightly controlled.

“No,” Thor agrees. “And I followed you because—I was going to ask if maybe you could just take my memories away again, for good, reset this—”

Loki can feel the bile climbing up his throat. “I was that revolting, then,” he spits. “That disgusting that you can’t even _live_ with yourself afterwards—” He’s going to vomit.

“NO. No. Brother, I—”

“Get out. Get out of here before I hex you. Get OUT!” Loki throws his arm out and the door to the hallway flies open and slams against the wall. He is rage incarnate, he is magma boiling out of the angry black ground. “OUT!”

Thor walks over and kicks the door shut.

“You idiot,” Thor says.

And kisses him.

His hand is clamped around the back of Loki’s neck and his other arm has gone around Loki’s waist to pull him in by the small of the back, and Loki is clutching at his upper arms and Thor is _kissing him_. He gasps into Thor’s mouth, shocked.

By the time Loki has regained his wits enough to kiss back, Thor is already pulling back and he shakes him just slightly. His voice is ragged. “We’re both fucking idiots. We could have been doing this the whole time.”

And Loki can’t help it. He bursts into tears. All the tightly wound tension from tonight and from the long helpless weeks of anger and humiliation and lust and need snaps, and the recoil whips a sharp crack across his heart, and then it’s all flooding out and out and out in a torrent of painful release and he cries like a baby. 

He buries his face in Thor’s shoulder, wracked with big, heaving, choking sobs that he can’t stop and can’t even control in the slightest. He holds Thor so tightly to him that he can feel every one of Thor’s buttons smashing into his sternum. Thor’s arms around him are just as tight. Loki cries until the worst of it is emptied out of him, and Thor holds him through it, and Loki feels like his heart might burst.

They _are_ fucking idiots. They’re the worst kind of idiots. The kind who _don’t talk to each other_. Wasn’t that the lesson they should have learned from that stupid wine to begin with? That when they _do_ let down their defenses and connect, that extremely happy-making things happen?

When Loki finally pulls back his nose is stuffy and his eyes are puffy and his face is wet and probably red and blotchy and he shudders to think what his hair must look like. Thor is looking at him and Loki chokes out a little laugh and turns his face to the side.

“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I’m hideous right now.”

“No you’re not,” Thor says. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Loki can feel his face start to crumple again.

“Don’t cry anymore,” Thor says, his voice thick. “I’ll start too and then we’ll never stop.”

Loki chokes out another laugh and squeezes Thor’s biceps. His eyes focus on Thor’s sleeves. The fabric is stretched so tautly over his muscles it’s like a second skin. He sniffles. “You got a new doublet for me.” It just pops out of his mouth for no reason.

“I did my hair too.”

Loki reaches up and touches one of the silver-woven braids, lets himself feel it, lets his fingers wander down it. He twists it around his index finger and tugs lightly. He doesn’t look at Thor’s eyes. He might cry again and once was already quite enough.

“I could tell.”

Thor takes Loki’s hand and kisses his wrist and Loki inhales shakily.

“We should still talk—” Thor begins, but Loki is grabbing him by the back of the head and pulling their faces together and kissing him, two soft close-lipped ones and then a third, longer and deeper. Thor makes the smallest little ‘mm’ sound when the tip of Loki’s tongue sweeps at his lips and fire races down to Loki’s belly.

“Later.” Loki’s wanted this so badly and now he has it and he doesn’t want to ruin it with talking. He’s still afraid it might be a dream or a delusion or a joke...a misunderstanding...

But Thor’s hands on his shoulders are firm and he pushes Loki away. Loki feels his heart twist. It feels like rejection. Thor’s eyes are serious though, and they study Loki’s face closely. Loki feels more exposed than if he were naked. He bites his own lip, hard, so he won’t cry again.

“Why?” he says. It sounds so plaintive that he wants to stuff it back inside his throat. Why isn’t Thor still kissing him, why do they need to _talk_ —

“I need to know first,” Thor says. “That you want this. Because you didn’t before. Well, you did, but—” and Loki winces slightly “—you know what I mean. You were so angry afterwards, and hurt, and I can’t do that again, I can’t. It was the worst feeling of my life, thinking that I had hurt you like that. That you would hate me and never speak to me again, and that maybe I deserved it. So I need you to tell me, please, one way or the other. Tell me to go and I’ll go, tell me to stay and I’ll stay.”

Loki’s heart swells with every word. Oh. Stupid, gallant Thor. But now Loki has to prod a little, because he always does, he can’t just leave well enough alone.

“You’d leave, just like that?”

Thor inhales deeply. “If that was what you wanted.”

“It would be so easy to let this go, then?”

Thor shakes his head and his mouth compresses into a thin line. A muscle in his jaw twitches. An exhale, sharply through his nose. “No. It would be like death.”

“Oh good,” Loki says faintly. “Because I think I might die if you left, too.” He reaches up to touch Thor’s cheek and Thor seizes his hand and kisses his wrist again, starts kissing up his arm, and Loki is dizzy, he’s falling up, he’s falling down, he doesn’t even know which way is which anymore. “Yes, I want this,” he hears himself say without consciously moving his mouth. “I want you, any way I can have you, I want you, _please_ —”

And Thor is at his neck now and Loki lets out a breathy _ahh_. His mouth is still going, talking without his permission.

“Do you want me too? Say you want me too, say it—”

“More than I’ve ever wanted anything,” Thor says hoarsely. He hoists Loki up off the ground just like he did before, and Loki wraps his legs around Thor’s waist just like he did before, only it’s really for the first time. Before, they were two strangers fucking in a tavern, and now they are brothers about to knowingly make love in Loki’s childhood bed. Because he’s not so naive as all that, and that’s what this will be. Not just fucking. Mere lust could not turn brothers into lovers this way.

Loki has never made love before. It seems right that the first time should be with the person he loves the most, who brings him the most pain and the most heart rending joy.

And, _fuck_ , being picked up like he weighs nothing is still such a fucking turn on.

Thor starts carrying him into the bedroom. Loki’s cock is hard and trapped between them and he convulsively tightens his knees around Thor’s sides, pressing harder into him.

“I can’t think about anything else,” Thor is murmuring in Loki’s ear, low and rough. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. All I can think about is you. Coming to your room and having you, over and over and over again—”

“Gods, yes,” Loki whimpers. The fire in his belly is growing, spreading. He bites at Thor’s earlobe and Thor groans and captures Loki’s mouth in a messy kiss.

“Can you get rid of our clothes?” Thor says against Loki’s mouth and “mmf” Loki says and then they’re naked and still plastered together and _oh_ , this is really nice. Vast tracts of naked Thor have just become instantly available, and really, Loki should have thought of this sooner.

Thor carries them both down onto the bed, his arms still wrapped around Loki’s back, Loki’s legs around his waist, and they devour each other greedily. Kissing Thor is a feast. There is simply so much of him, and every inch magnificent. His lips of course, and then down his neck to those two delectable trapezius muscles that frame it as prettily as a picture and fit perfectly under Loki’s teeth. Then the sweep of the deltoids down to his utterly ridiculous arms. His breast the envy of anyone, man or woman.

Loki cups them, one in each hand, and squeezes. Thor grins down at him, his face framed by his falling hair.

Loki has that same flash of memory that he had the first time they’d fucked, of Thor leaning over him just like this but backlit by the sun, and he realizes what it is.

It’s from a time so long ago that Loki had thought he’d forgotten it entirely. They were children and Loki had just played a rotten trick on Thor and ended up stabbing him. Thor had roared with all the fury in his young chest and thrown Loki off of him so hard that Loki blacked out when he hit the ground. And when he came to, it was to Thor’s face hovering over him, blocking out the sun, and he was bleeding heavily from the wound that Loki had given him. And instead of taking care of himself or being angry, he was beside himself with worry that _he’d_ hurt _Loki_. It was the first time in his life that Loki had ever begun to realize just how much his brother actually loved him.

And that memory had tried to come to Loki even when he barely remembered his own name, and it’s coming to him now when he’s again under his brother, all knowingly this time, aware of every ramification—and this, _this_ is how much his brother actually loves him, that he has been driven to desperation and will risk everything for _this_ —

“Thor,” Loki says brokenly, and he blinks and tears are falling freely down his temples into his hair, like rain.

Thor’s grin fades. “What’s wrong?” 

Loki shakes his head and slides his hands up to clasp Thor’s neck and pulls him down for a kiss. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just...everything.”

Thor’s hand is on his face, wiping at his tears. “I know.” His own voice sounds thick, his eyes too bright. “Brother.”

A whole lifetime fits inside that word. It’s beyond love and hate; it’s happiness and jealousy and intimacy, camaraderie and heartache, neediness and rivalry and joy and protectiveness and anger and every other emotion that two people can wring from each other.

One word. Two syllables. It makes everything so much better, and everything so much worse.

They stare at each other, the shared moment stretching long and aching between them.

Loki squeezes Thor’s neck. “Would you have ever...if we hadn’t lost our memories…”

“I don’t know,” Thor says. “I don’t know if I would ever have gotten the courage.”

“So you wanted to?”

“Yes. Did you?”

Thor’s admission steals Loki’s breath away.

“I don’t know...I think I must have, though I didn’t realize it until after it happened…”

“I’m sorry you had the choice taken from you.”

“I didn’t,” Loki says. He reaches up with two fingers and touches Thor’s lips. “I made it then and I’m making it again now.”

Thor kisses him fiercely and Loki tangles his fingers in Thor’s hair and holds him fast. He opens his mouth for Thor’s tongue and, Norns, Thor is so big and _heavy_ , crushing him into the mattress, and Loki arches up into him desperately.

He’s had enough of talking.

He’s had enough of longing and crying and emptying himself out, and now he wants to take. Fill himself up until he’s full to bursting. Drink in everything that Thor will give him until maybe, possibly, he can finally begin to feel whole again.

Thor’s hands are all over him, big and warm. They make Loki feel small and protected in a way he’s never really felt before. Like Thor could just contain his whole being in his cupped palms. Thor is thumbing at his nipples, dragging his hands down Loki’s ribs, his hips, his flanks, grabbing his ass and hauling their pelvises together until their cocks are grinding against each other.

“Oil in the bedstand,” Loki says, pleading, “hurry. I need you inside me.”

“Fuck,” Thor groans, fumbling at the bedstand. “Fuck.”

Well this is one thing that Loki knows about himself now. When his brother is involved he begs for it whether he means to or not.

Thor’s slick fingers breach him and Loki gasps and bears down, taking him in. “Hurry,” he pleads again.

“Gods, you drive me crazy,” Thor rasps. He bites at Loki’s neck and works his fingers inside of him. “Don’t rush me, don’t rush—”

But Loki is whining and squirming, he can’t help it, he needs more than Thor’s fingers, he needs it all, he needs it _now_.

“Do it, just do it, come on, I need you, do it, _fuck_ —”

Thor swears again, and then his fingers are gone, but it’s only so he can push the head of his cock against Loki’s opening instead. Loki grabs his hips and urges him forward. He knows it will burn. He doesn’t care. He wants it to burn, wants to feel it, wants to know this is really happening.

Loki realizes he’s whispering ‘ _yes_ ’ over and over again as Thor inches in, _yesyesyes_ and Thor is making noise too, exhaling a rough grunt each time he shoves forward, or ‘ _Loki_ ’, and Loki arches up into him, inviting the last little bit, and Thor finally seats himself fully and comes to a trembling stop. Loki wraps his legs and arms both around his brother and holds him there, and Thor seeks his mouth for a kiss.

They breathe each other’s air for a moment, noses touching, and Thor flexes his hips just slightly, wringing little noises from the backs of both their throats.

“I love you so fucking much,” Thor whispers harshly. “Do you know that?”

Loki can feel his tears threaten to fall again, so instead he moves against Thor and makes them both shudder. He buries his face in Thor’s neck and nods helplessly, clinging.

He knows. How could he ever have doubted?

Thor starts to fuck him, long deep strokes that Loki can feel all the way up into his belly. Gods, there is nothing else in the world like this. His nails rake down Thor’s back as the pace picks up, and he tries to keep up with Thor’s rhythm, spreading his legs wider, as wide as they’ll go, his ankles bouncing somewhere up by his ears.

Fuck. Fuck. Thor is everything right now, everywhere, inside and out and all around, the air in his lungs, the flesh in his flesh. Loki gives up trying to hold his own and just surrenders. Thor is driving into him with centuries worth of momentum and it’s all Loki can do not to sob as he’s fucked into the mattress.

Thor grabs Loki’s ass with both hands and _lifts_ the next time he thrusts and Loki sees stars. _Oh. Ohhhh._ He’s keening now, he can hear himself, he’s out of his mind, he’s scrabbling at the sheets, his legs are shaking, and Thor keeps going and going and—yes, right there, just—right there—and it’s building and building and Loki _writhes_ , he bucks, he’s thrashing like an animal, his cock is leaking all over the place, he’s wet, everything is so wet, and—right _there_ —right—fucking— _ahhhhhhh_.

Loki comes from someplace deep inside himself that he didn’t know existed, hanging suspended in a timeless moment of ecstasy, his whole body tightening like a bowstring, spasming. Thor thrusts in one more time with a strangled cry and buries himself to the hilt. His body is wracked with tremors as his hips stutter, emptying himself into his brother. He holds there, and Loki hugs him with his weakened limbs, and Thor kisses Loki’s neck, his ear, his jaw, his cheek, his lips and his lips and his lips, and they’re smiling into each other’s mouths.

Thor rubs the tips of their noses together.

“Don’t hit me with a chair this time.”

“You asshole,” Loki says shakily, and kisses him again.

Thor falls onto his side with his cock still inside Loki and they lie there with their arms around each other for long minutes, breathing.

Thor opens his mouth to speak but Loki puts his hand over it.

“No thinking,” Loki says. “Only enjoying.”

Thor’s arms tighten around him. “Ok.”

Loki tries to take his own advice. No thinking. It helps that his mind is mostly a completely blissed out blank right now.

“You looked so good tonight,” Loki murmurs. He’s running his fingers down Thor’s chest, memorizing the topography.

“So did you. Where did you get those pants? I’m pretty sure they might be illegal in some places.”

Loki laughs. “I made them specifically for you.”

Thor kisses the top of his head. “You’re a marvel.”

“I know.”

“Mmm.”

Drowsy contented silence.

“Thor?”

“Yes?”

“Will you sleep here tonight?”

“Wellll.” Thor draws the syllable out exaggeratedly. “No.”

Loki’s heart clenches. “What?”

“Sleep? No. Stay here until morning and fuck until neither of us can walk straight for a week? Definitely yes.”

“You _asshole_ ,” Loki says again, but he’s laughing, and his heart is unclenching. And when he looks up, Thor’s eyes are looking back down at him with an entire ocean of tenderness and warmth, and Loki offers his face up for more kisses, and Thor gives them until he’s dizzy.

“And the night after?” Loki asks.

“Every night after. As many as you’ll have me.”

Loki snuggles his face into Thor’s chest again, pleased and for some reason slightly embarrassed. Possibly at the abject terror he’d felt for half a second before he knew Thor was joking. 

“Do you know what the biggest difference was?” Thor says after a minute. “When we didn’t remember anything? When we could start from scratch? How happy you were.”

Loki feels his cheeks flush and squeezes his eyes closed. His voice is a whisper. “I thought I said no thinking.” And then, involuntarily, “I’m happy right now.” It’s a completely un-Loki thing to say, but here with his brother’s arms around him, their bodies still entwined from lovemaking, it’s impossible to hide from it.

“I am too.”

Norns, Thor is turning them both sentimental.

Although now Thor is kissing his neck again and his cock is thickening inside of Loki, and Loki’s own cock is already beginning to stir to impossible life as well, and he thinks that maybe—just maybe—this kind of sentimental isn’t so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> visit me at [raven-brings-light.tumblr.com](https://raven-brings-light.tumblr.com)!


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